Raising this dead article as Microsoft now delivers extended support pricing details for those who choose not to migrate to the newer version of Windows. The one they were told they’d not ever have to migrate to
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And really, it would have worked. Too bad the suits and marketing got bored
The last [good] version of Windows.
That would be 7. With 10 Microsoft went heavily into the snooping business.
8.1 is a faster version of 7 that also has some compatibility with apps that are said to require 10. Just disable those metro things and use your favorite app for start menu.
I’m glad I have finally seen someone else who appreciates windows 8 (or at least is willing to admit it). People just lose their shit when there are any changes to the start menu, but the best start menu is to not have one at all.
Windows 8 has way better hotkeys (limit seaeching to files, programs, or applications) compared to the unified search in newer versions.
Actually I’m a fan of having a start menu but I also used some other apps and launchers, even a dock (RocketDock is one of the most useful apps for me and it’s a shame it never received the x64 version).
Used 8.1 for years and didn’t need to reinstall it even once. I appreciate it for its technical side. From what I understand it was developed together with the mobile version so it’s somewhat lighter on resources. It also lacks aero which adds to that.
I must be in the minority that actually prefers 11 to 10
My PC is 10, my laptop for work is now 11. It’s the same. I guess I’m just not a power user but it operates exactly the same for me. I wouldn’t update from 10, but I wouldn’t not buy 11.
Technically both are 10, but I do like the new UI on 11.
I am mostly a Linux user (surprise, Lemmy!) but recently started a new job. Given the choice of a Windows laptop vs a Macbook Pro, I took the latter, despite my long-time distaste for Apple.
I do not, even in a work setting, even want to touch Windows 11 in any recurring capacity (yes, I did try it – at my last role).
And the thing of it is, millions of non-tech savvy people would not mind about having to move to Windows 11 and would do so in due course if Microsoft didn’t deliberately cripple it so it won’t run on a wide swath of not-too-old hardware.
They make your machine slow to you need to replace it. People now see computers and phones as almost disposable
Designed obsolescence should be fucking illegal.
Longhorn (pre-reset) was my last version of windows back in 2004. after that mess, i refused to ever go back.
The name came from the bar in Whistler, BC… might give a little more insight into the development team…
i know.
fyi, WindowsXP was codenamed “Whistler”. Windows 7 was originally codenamed “Blackcomb”, but that codename was later dropped. Windows Home Server 2011 was codenamed “Vail”.
the MS team has a history of using ski resorts and related names as codenames for windows betas.
Oh yes, I’m well aware but couldn’t remember what names connected to the proper OS. I’ve always had the joking idea in my head that the names came from a project manager who didn’t actually do anything except daydream about where their next paid vacation was booked lol
Whistler Blackcomb was the name of a resort that the Windows design team used to on retreat to. They would also go elsewhere, as I’m sure you can guess…
Windows 11 was codenamed “Sun Valley”
Shit TIL. I was up there a few weeks ago.
Windows 7 was peak Windows experience IMO, and to follow it up win Windows 8…
I consider Windows 7 the last good version, but I still consider Windows 2000 to be when Microsoft was at the top of their game.
I still remember my first windows 7 install. I remember my wallpaper. It was winter. I rocked a digital blasphemy snowman wallpaper. Shortly after, doom 3 was released. The amount of counter strike I played on there was problematic. I remember installing like a game desktop where it was an fps and I could arrange things and walk to different rooms of a house which were just folders of shortcuts and shit. Lol. It was neat for a bit.
So nostalgic now.
Better times, friend. Better times.
Windows 7 is awful
It was their last good OS.
Still proprietary spyware, it looks awful and it is bloated.
Let’s agree to disagree
It’s shit compared to XP, but it’s wonderful when compared to 11, or even 10.
Far enough
They are both right.
Everyone that was paying attention to the Microsoft Windows support lifecycle web page back then knew that statement was horse shit.
I’ll be staying on 10 for as long as possible, so that by the time I have to upgrade people will have found ways to mod most of the bullshit out of the newer version.
I’ll probably get down voted to oblivion, but I remember EVERYONE had the same “I’ll never move” rhetoric with Windows 7, and before that Windows XP. Ya’ll eventually move.
I’ve moved 3 of my 6 windows boxes from 10 to 11 and it’s not that much different. I just debloat the stuff I don’t want and move on. Even that isn’t different, ya’ll remember nlite? We’ve been ripping crap we didn’t want out of the OS for as long as I can remember.
Hell, I even remeber getting doublespace.exe off my old dos 5 disks so I could use it on my dos 6 and Windows 3.1.1 install. People who use Windows are just more used to tearing down what they don’t want rather than building up what they do (*nix). Is it harder these days…marginally…is there more to remove…yup. But it’s still the same crap we’ve always done.
Ya’ll eventually move.
Yeah, I moved to Linux.
Me thinks Lemmy isn’t great at representing the larger world. Lots of tech folks here.
Honestly 11 was finally the push I needed to try Linux as my main driver. Gaming finally got to the point where I could switch. The only thing they made in 11 that was beat was AutoHDR. Everything else was annoyance to me.
The difference this time is that my computer literally can’t run Win 11. I’m not throwing away a perfectly good PC just because of Win 11’s hardware requirements.
Especially not for such enragingly artificial hardware requirements. Any computer able to run 64-Bit Win XP would probably run Windows 11 just fine if Microsoft hadn’t decided to build instructions that only work on recent CPUs into the kernel specifically to make it not run on older hardware.
Assuming Microsoft is acting nefarious here, what would there motivation be to lock out older hardware?
They could probably reduce the support needed for drivers that support said older hardware. I would imagine some of those drivers are probably hard to maintain. That’s my guess anyway.
To sell new hardware with new OEM windows licenses
So I WAS on 11 until all of the sudden my computer refused to boot with the special hardware thing enabled. Had to downgrade to Windows 10 and the mobo manufacturer’s response was ‘try replacing every other part in your PC’…sorry I don’t have the money to have spare parts of everything just lying around. 10 works perfectly fine, and it’ll give me an excuse to upgrade my mobo in Oct 2025. :-)
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If I wanted an operating that could break from a regular update I’d just install Arch!
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Why is windows still bloated after all these decades?
Did you expect them to remove features over time?
“Features” lmfao!
In all seriousness, remove actual beneficial features? No. Remove the shit that people have been complaining about for ages? Yes, but I guess we are all in on losing people eventually.
Maybe to 12, a lot of people stuck with 7 until 10, because 8 sucked. A lot of people stuck with XP because Vista sucked. A lot of people are sticking with 10 because 11 sucks. In history, Microsoft has had a usable OS every other.
If 12 is shit, perhaps Linux will finally get its day.
Windows 11 is essentially just 10 with a theme over it. 90% of the hate for Windows 11 also applies to 10. The only real new thing is the hardware requirements.
I wish. Most stuff I used to do now has extra clicks required, the right click 7z panel, the process monitor kill process button (now hidden on a submenu on a right-click), and I can’t put the taskbar vertically!!! I use two monitors, I’m used to having it on the right monitor, on the left vertically. The reasoning was that not many people move their taskbar and while that might be true, after some regex modifications, the only thing that’s completely broken if you put the taskbar vertical was the news button pop-up (it didn’t align correctly), which is basically ads, and I’m completely against them gutting features because their ads need extra work (not that much work, just work).
Besides that, having a fat suggested apps bar on the windows menu that takes 30% of the space is a thing again, which is ad space too. Great
Anyway, KDE is cool. Thanks Microsoft, I would have persevered if it wasn’t for the vertical taskbar, now I’m happier.
Classic right click menu is a regkey away.
Classic control panel is still there too.
I have 4 monitors, task bar on all of them, not sure why yours doesn’t. Apps even go to the appropriate task bar per monitor when minimized.
Suggested apps size can be minimized.
They only show you “ad” apps on first boot, otherwise gone once you remove them.
Me thinks you just like to complain lol
Haven’t kept up with it, but that certainly wasn’t the case on release and I still don’t think it’s as functional as 10. I have only used it on a family laptop and had trouble simply connecting a printer, it drives you even further away from useful settings than 10 does.
Theme is subjective of course, but I much prefer 10 myself.
11 has ads, AI and other annoyances crammed in.
Windows 10 had ads from the start. That was the biggest complaint about it on release, and the fact that people hate 11 and are ok with 10 on that baffles me.
And somewhat coincidentally the bing shit was added to 10 before 11 got it.
Windows 11 is so much worse. Windows has always been problematic but now Microsoft is forcing AI, Edge, One drive and teams. You can’t use up to date Windows without the BS. Windows 10 is now just as bad as Windows 11
That’s what happens when one company has pretty much exclusive control over most consumer machines.
All removable.
Not really. W11 doesn’t pass my company privacy and security certification (we deal with a lot of sensitive data). A lot of stuff, specially the intrusive AI hooks into the filesystem cannot be removed. I mean, you can remove them to the point that a user won’t notice or think that the AI was there. But there’s a bunch of under the hood shit that still makes it a liability. Even just disabling the Bing AI BS on Edge doesn’t actually remove it, it just makes it invisible to the user. Just like OneDrive and Teams cannot be actually removed, they just exist and act out of the user eye, but we actually pay to use those so the evaluation is different. But the AI crap is not transparent enough to even be audited by an independent third party. We are already a bit weirded out by Teams auto transcript that just listens to all chats and all meeting at all times. But that shit is so bad that it never gets a single word correct. We received proof that the transcript runs locally and never leaves our sharepoint server, so we tolerate it. MS is just crap all around when you actually need to be secure or private.
No, not really. Even if it was it is still annoying to do and is confusing for most people.
I remember EVERYONE had the same “I’ll never move” rhetoric with Windows 7
I did eventually move… to Linux. Windows 7 was the last version of Windows I’ve had installed on any machine I own.
I never upgraded from Win 7. I used in untill Steam stopped its support and now my gaming rig runs on Linux.
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Well, if you’re sticking with Windows, you really have no choice. The sun is rapidly setting on using Windows 7 as a “daily driver” - a lot of new software doesn’t support it and the older versions that work on Windows 7 are getting less and less viable. Windows 8 is in the same boat as Windows 7. Windows 10 goes out of support next year, but you’ve probably got to 2028 or maybe 2029 before you really have to move.
I ended up riding Windows 7 pretty much to the bitter end. Steam dropping Windows 7 support last December was it for the last Windows box. Everything now is running Linux.
I moved away, but not to newer windows.
I would use Linux but my graphics card only has nouveau drivers in Linux and that’s a lot worse than Nvidia drivers in Windows 10. Same for some older ATI/AMD cards that still pack a punch in Windows with the official drivers but aren’t supported in Linux in official drivers.
Out of curiosity, what GPU do you have that is not decently supported? Both the latest AMD and NVidia stuff is, at least for the general public stuff.
I will have a look and get back to you.
I must admit however that I have had a change of mind after my comment and that it may have been a failure on my end. I think I may have overlooked an option for at least one of my cards, and I have since also found a guide that uses a PPA in Ubuntu.
Also besides this I have some really old (pci-express) graphics cards in active use because they are better than onboard and the pc’s are still fast enough. But it would be nice to get those working with official drivers (even if older) so that some simpler games like FlatOut 1 & 2 can still be played on them.
You have to understand technology is constantly evolving, which requires upgrades to allow utilization those technologies.
So they probably needed the upgrade for a new EULA, to allow for improved shenanigans built right into Windows, that will be a huge benefit to Microsoft, and would allow closer more invasive monitoring of your system, but wouldn’t be legal without the new EULA.
Very legal and very cool. 🤑The only reason I still have Windows are a few games that don’t work properly on Linux (via Steam Proton) yet.
I will keep Windows 10 until Steam no longer supports it or all my games run well on Linux (I check for that occasionally). IDGAF about no longer getting security updates as I have moved everything except for those few games to Linux years ago.
I multibox a certain game and that is something proton simply can’t handle. It’s only designed with a single game in mind so each instance runs it’s own layer which quickly eats up resources that are never freed up.
if I’m ever forced to upgrade my base system I guess the first thing I’ll do is try my game in a windows VM
Windows 11 for work, 10 for the games that don’t work on manjaro.
Well I suppose they were right. Windows 10 was the last version of Windows for me. I’m okay with not using what little only works on windows. Unless you need something more niche/specialised, windows isn’t worth the pain.
Yeah, same for me. I’m using the time between now and paying for updates to do research on what distro I want to try to learn… I’ve used Ubuntu a long time ago, but I’m not sure that’s exactly what I want.
I wish I felt this way. I installed SuSE Tumbleweed a while ago, and while I overall liked it, it was so finicky. My bluetooth ceased working after updating a bunch of stuff and I never got it working again. I feel like things are very rarely plug and play with Linux, something Windows has gotten pretty good at since, well at least XP.
Back when I used Linux as my daily driver, around 2007-2011 I was okay with that. Sure I had issues every so often, but I didn’t mind spending time to solve them. Nowadays when I spend 8 hours in front of the computer for work, if I want to spend more time in front of the computer it’s generally because I either want to enjoy a game, or experiment with music, what have you, and having things spontaneously crap out on me would drive me nuts.
Maybe SuSE Tumbleweed wasn’t the right choice. My thinking there was; a rolling distro will always be up-to-date, no more big OS upgrades ever, I’ll just set things up the way I like it and that’s that.
If you install Linux on any sort of proprietaryish system. Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc. You need to expect to have some issues. And it’s not linux’s fault.
If you want to have a smooth “just works” experience with Linux. Either buy a system made to run it. System 76, tuxedo etc. Or build it yourself if you have the know how.
You wouldn’t try to install Mac OS on a non Mac and expect it to work flawlessly. We shouldn’t expect that of Linux either. It often still does. But that’s besides the point.
My favorite laptop to use right now A 2017 HP elitebook with an AMD chipset. The Bluetooth is indeed a bit of a problem unfortunately. But if I took the time to source a decent Intel m.2 upgrade board. It would be flawless apart from the fingerprint sensor which will never work. But again, that’s not linux’s fault.
Make the investment into a compatible system and you won’t regret it.
I don’t get why you’re being downvoted because these are in general good tips.
I assembled my PC myself, off the shelf parts of course (I don’t really do electronics) but it’s not a locked down SOC or anything like that. My first foray into Linux with it was a bit too early because the kernel on the OS I tried hadn’t been updated to support my CPU. That was a bit of a headscratcher because the problems manifested in an interesting way.
It doesn’t change the fact that setting things up with Linux is a lot of extra manual work, which at some point the benefits of doing it will outweigh the inconvenience of it, but I’ve not reached that point yet.
Probably a tonal issue on my part. Not intentional. But it’s happened before. Combined with the fact that despite my advice being sound. It’s far from an ideal solution for a number of people. Not everyone can buy online, and many don’t have the interest or aptitude to procure and assemble themselves. And it sucks that there isn’t a better option. Brick and mortars etc providing an option.
I have run Linux on systems from every major SI. Dell, HP, Lenovo, Acer, IBM etc. Tower wise these days it’s fairly foolproof outside network or graphics interfaces. Realtek is a mess. And Nvidia IS getting better, but still shits the bed badly when I try to use it with Wayland and the software I want to use. Which is getting to be issue enough that I’m de-nvidifying where possible till Nvidia gets it together.
Laptops are a special hell though. Malfunctioning/non functioning screen controls, IO, and peripherals that can’t be replaced etc. The next laptop I buy will be one built with Linux compatibility in mind. I’m getting to the point myself that while I can chase down and fix issues. I would rather it just fully worked. Replacing the m.2 network interfaces on systems that allow it is great and all. But at my age my eyesight is getting to where attaching the antenna leads is very challenging.
That’s really the biggest problem I think Linux has, unfortunately it’s also one of Linux’s best features - it’s not a uniform experience. Yours won’t be the same as mine, etc.
Some things that should be simple aren’t, and sometimes getting things going can be frustrating, and you will without question at some point have to troubleshoot and fix something.
I’m fortunate that I have a lot of background and experience in the industry, and I can understand people don’t want to go to that trouble, just like people don’t want to learn to cook.
Most things in Linux I find these days do plug and play to some degree, but there is absolutely missing effort and/or openness from the hardware vendors. Like not being able to configure macro keys/extra mouse buttons without a windows vm.
Having said that, I found the way windows was going, adding crap into the os that I don’t want, and constantly changing where settings are etc. Changing my defaults, and so on. There’s just too much I don’t like about the way it’s managed. Also, winsecure.
I’m fortunate that I have a lot of background and experience in the industry, and I can understand people don’t want to go to that trouble, just like people don’t want to learn to cook.
I’m kind of in that boat, it’s not that I can’t solve the issues; I’ve used Linux for years. I work as a software developer, my entire day is about solving problems, sometimes it’s IT related, CI, dependency updates, build tools that cease working properly because of it, integration scripts, migrations, etc. and sometimes it’s more of a workflow thing; how do I best implement a solution that gets a user from A to B in the smoothest way possible?
In that way I’m like a professional cook that spent all day cooking for others, so when they get home they just don’t have the energy to put all that effort into themselves.
Having said that, I found the way windows was going, adding crap into the os that I don’t want, and constantly changing where settings are etc. Changing my defaults, and so on. There’s just too much I don’t like about the way it’s managed. Also, winsecure.
I can get behind this 100%, which is doubly funny because I make my money as a .NET developer. I work with various Microsoft platforms on a daily basis. As a developer the experience is honestly really comfy, they’ve done a good job there. Teams can fucking go die though. What a nightmare product.
In that way I’m like a professional cook that spent all day cooking for others, so when they get home they just don’t have the energy to put all that effort into themselves.
Funny that, I’m a Linux admin. I actually run my own servers for everything. I’m a firm believer in whoever owns the hardware owns the data. It’s just like work but with tools that I like. I like knowing where it is, and it’s not going to end the world if it’s offline for a time.
I did windows admin for about 5 years though up to 2008r2, and I have to say I do like AD and ntfs ACLs (except when they break). Those times do contribute to my aversion.
I too know a thing or two about developing, back in the day I did C, pascal, C++. I remember how much easier delphi was than mfc. I got out of developing when they started dumbing down the tools further (why didn’t you die, java… C#, etc.) Electron can’t die in a dumpster fire fast enough.
Don’t start me on teams. I’d say the same for o365 though. Hard to believe these products make me want work to go back to lotus notes, domino, sametime…
If you have to use windows 11, use https://github.com/rbleattler/BloatyNosy to clean it up.
And if you are not the most tech savvy, read through the options to make sure it is what you need removed. Removing everything might break some things, because M$.
I can safely say that removing the telemetry is absolutely essential. Remove it from Firefox, and (ew) Chrome (ew, ew) alongside Windows telemetry because fuck that shit.
Be really careful as that can open up security holes
